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tv   CNN Newsroom  CNN  August 17, 2012 11:00am-12:00pm EDT

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there. i bet. what i want next is a ride on this motorbike that is the y2k super bike. it's half as fast as a plane because he put helicopter engines inside this motorbike. so, next time, maybe. >> great assignment. lucky girl. thanks for joining me today. "newsroom" continues with ashley banfield. thank you. it's 11:00 on the east coast. 8:00 a.m. on the west coast. we start with this. that thorn in mitt romney's side. the the tax returns. mitt romney told reporters yesterday finally because it's taken a while to get this information, that he paid no less than 13% of his income
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taxes for the entire past decade. listen up. >> i did go back and look at my taxes and over the past ten years, i never paid less than 13%. i think the most recent year is 13.6 or something like that. so paid taxes every single year. harry reid's charge is totally false. i'm sure waiting for harry to put up who it was that told him what he says they told him. i don't believe it for a minute, by the way. but every year, i paid at least 13% and if you add in addition the amount that goes to charity, the number goes above 20%. >> shortly after that, a very unusual offer came out from the obama team. you might say it's let's make a deal. the obama campaign manager sent a letter to the romney camp offering to back off not completely. but to at least back off the cause for the release of the additional years of tax returns
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if he agrees to disclose five years. not ten. five years. of tax information. the letter to mitt romney said in part if the governor will release five years of returns, i commit in turn that we will not criticize him for not releasing more. so far though, the romney team has not taking them up and delving into this further is paul steinhauser. do we have any reaction so far from the romney campaign to this, i don't think this is an olive branch. i don't know if this is what it seems to be. this is a chess move. >> yeah, politics here. we have a response, thanks but no thanks. the letter came out about 6:30 a.m. eastern time this morning. about two hours later, here's a letter from the campaign manager for the romney campaign. here's what he says. hey, first, jim, thanks for the
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note, but it's clear president obama wants nothing more than than to tack about governor romney's tax returns instead of the issues that matter like putting americans back to work. if governor romney's tax returns are the core message of your campaign, there will be ample time for president obama to discuss them over the next 81 days. this is the response that the obama campaign is just wasting its time talking about these trivial issues. >> i really do mean chess move because why would the obama campaign see value in pushing for only five years when they've been hard at it on the ten years. what would be in it for them? >> they must think there's something in the years they're asking for. mitt romney's released his 2010 returns. he says when they'reompleted, he got an extension. they'll be down in october. what the obama campaign is asking for is three more years
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and three earlier years. all five, mitt romney has been a candidate for president. in the '08 campaign and now. very smart by the obama campaign because anytime you're talk about this story, you're not talking about the economy. and jobs. things that mitt romney wants to talk about. so it's almost a distraction. how do americans feel about this? we asked last week in a cnn poll. you can see a big majority there said yes, we would like mitt romney. he should release additional tax returns. only 36% saying no. so, i think politically, this probably definitely helps the obama campaign more than the romney campaign. >> stay tuned on this one. i don't think this one's going to go away either and hopefully, you won't either. more questions for you later. what do americans pay in taxes? wanted to put this graphic up for you considering that mitt romney has said i paid no less than 13% in taxes for the last ten years, but then look at
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this. obama had paid 26% in taxes and this is the average in 2010. average american paid about 11% in taxes. millionaires paying an average of 25%. that's fascinating stuff. so there you go. mitt romney's a bit above you, president obama quite a bit above you. so for mitt romney, this does not seem to be an issue that's goin to go away. you might call it an achilles heel. in fact, t not just the democrats hammering him. a lot of conservatives have been urging him to release his taxes. people like george will. michael steele and the texas governor, rick perry, also has said what's the the problem? you better do it. the pros are better than the cons. they worry that my not releasing them, mitt romney is sending a bad message. perhaps that i'm very wealthy
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and i don't want people to know about my wealth. one man who knows a lot about personal wealth and how it's taxed is david johnson. it's good to see you and you're the perfect person to talk to today. we don't know a lot about mitt romney's personal wealth, but for the last two years of returns, but we know something about offshore accounts. give me the picture of what we know so far of mitt romney? >> well, in romney's case, we know he had accounts in the cayman islands. those are quite appropriate. they have to do with foreign investors and non-profit investors, but he also filed a very unusual tax form, an 8261 and that form makes it possible, doesn't mean he did, but makes it possible he paid no taxes for many years and as the manager of an investment pool, romney could defer into that as long as he wanted income connected with the investment pool. so i think that's the important issue here and i'm surprised at
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the five years. i've been calling on romney to release his tax returns since '84. i think the most interesting years would be 2008 and 2009 when the economy fell apart and the late '90s when the big tax shelters were being sold. >> okay. what's critical here and i was getting the tpolitical side of this with paul. these five years that the democrats are offering in return of letting go of the demand for ten. within the five years falls 2009. the year the obama administration granted the amnesty to americans, promising not to publicize their names or go after them with felonies if they had been hiding money offshore. if they just came forward and paid a penalty and some of the back taxes. give me a bit of a feel for this amnesty program and how successful it's been and what would have happened if you
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didn't take advantage of it? >> around 17,000 americans took advantage of this opportunity and the, there's been a big fight going on over ub srk, the swiss banking company selling criminal tax shelters in the u.s. they got a nonprosecution agreement. they're supposed to give 450 names out of 50,000. that's been fought as well. but the likelihood is what romney has done is legal, not illegal. given what we know about romney's career and he's been in politics, but that doesn't mean he may not have in the years in question paid tacks. he may have been audited and had to pay taxes after the fact. we wouldn't know that without seeing his returns and i predict to you the obama campaign is going to torture romney with this up until the day of the election. >> and i want to be clear. we do not know if there is anything related to an amnesty when it comes to mitt and ann romney's returns. let me repeat that. on another network, i have heard
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them calling out a word felony. we're not going there. go ahead. >> that's correct. you're exactly correct. we don't know. we did have a president that had criminal tax returns, richard nixon. so it's reasonable for us to ask. we want to see these returns and he gave them to mccain four years ago. >> i'm glad you said it's reasonable to ask because some people don't think it is. ann romney doesn't think it's reasonable. she thinks it provides ammo for the left wing to go after them, but i want to ask you, if there is something back after 2009, say before we have the 2011 and '10 and '11 returns with the romneys, if there is something with regard to amnesty, does it show up and what does it mean about the person that took advantage of the amnesty? >> romney would have filed amended returns if there had
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been amnesty or audit and there would be a closing agreement. that would be very, very real and damaging to romney if there was such a circumstance. and romney can be absolutely saying the truth, i paid at least 13% every year, but he may not have paid it in that year. he may have been audited and had to pay it after the fact. clearly, they have made a decision in the romney campaign that releasing these returns is more damaging than not. by the way, dick cheney released his returns for many years. nothing there. absolutely nothing. i went over them thoroughly. there was stuff about investment, but not taxes. george w. bush released years of returns. obama has. so clearly, there's something they're worried about. >> mitt romney's father released years of tax returns as well. there's a reason that you won a
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prize for writing about tax code. because you're very good at this. thank you very much. i want to let you know and i'm going to repeat this, we do not know anything about whether the romneys have taken any advantage of any kind of amnesty program. there were three offerings. 2009, 2011 and 2012. so we do not know and that is important. but we did want to know, so we reached out to the romney campaign about the 2009 amnesty program. we wanted to know if he had taken advantage of it. we asked that very question of the campaign. to be fair, we've done this within the last couple of hours since we got information about the offering that came from the obama administration of the give us five years and we won't badger you over ten, so they haven't had a lot of time to get back to us, but we have not had a response and my thanks to david for helping us. i want to switch to the shooting in washington, d.c. that we've been following. that suspect in that shooting
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has been charged and he's been undergoing a mental investigation. the building manager who overpowered him said he yelled the twords, i hate your politic, before drawing his handgun and shooting at the offices. sandra endo is live in washington with this. so, clearly, it appears that the allegations are true, that there may have been a political bone to pick with the council. there were 15 chick-fil-a sandwiches in his backpack swaels as well as a gun. the chick-fil-a president has come out against gay marriage. but what more are we hearing about this man? >> that political connection is certa certainly an angle investigators are looking into, but so far, there is no official word of a possible motive. the criminal complaint did include comments from the suspect's parents, who said their son has quote strong opinions with respect to those
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he believes do not treat homosexuals in a fair manner. he volunteered at a local lgbt community center here and the head of chick-fil-a has been vocal about same-sex marriage. but again, no official word on motive. >> so, we know there's a custody hearing while he remains in custody, there will be a hearing august 24th. what's the hearing going to be about? >> now, this is just the start of the long legal process that's involved surrounding this case and the hearing next friday will be a detention hearing to see if he will remain in custody and there will likely be a formal indictment filed in the near future as well and he's facing a federal firearms violation and assault with intent to kill, so he faces a maximum of 40 years in prison if convicted on both charges. >> also want to add there's a
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big blame game going on between the family research council and southern poverty law center on who is indirectly to blame for this shooting. that's the political talk about it. we're going to talk more about this with paul, who may have something fascinating to tell you about when it comes to somebody who you think is doing something, then you find out something entirely different. [ male announcer ] the perfect photo... [ man ] nice! [ male announcer ] isn't always the one you plan to take. whoa, check it out. hey baby goat... no that's not yours... [ hikers whispering ]
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we're driving safely. and sue saved money on brakes. now that's personal pricing. south africa is in a state of shock today after one of the deadliest police killings of civilians since the end of white apartheid rule in that country. police armed with automatic weapons opened fire yesterday on a small group of striking mine workers. mine workers who were protesting while holding machetes and spears and some witnesses say possibly handguns. here's what happened when police started firing and we have to warn you that the images you're about to see are extraordinarily graphic and quite disturbing. absolutely remark video coming out of south africa.
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and it took 12 hours of virtual silence, official silence about the scenes that you are seeing play out. before the police chief even confirmed that 34 people were dead and 78 people were wounded. the headlines in that country read blood bath, killing field, mine slaughter. just some of the newspapers and how they're covering the story. and let me just show you even "the new york times" has it as its front page photograph and "the wall street journal" here. so an international story, an american story as well. errol is monitoring these developments in johannesburg. what on earth could have prompted the police to open fire on people like this? >> they simply say they were fired upon first and let me show you a few of the headlines. this is the times, killing field. showing the graphic image as well as this newspaper, the
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star, cops go in for the kill. so this national and international pressure has forced the national police force here to conduct a press conference and address all of these questions that have been asked by immediamedia. why did this take place? and they say they're complete l justified. two police officers were killed at the hand of these workers. they were literally chopped to death. absolutely horrific. some are saying that the cops were so frightened they could see the potential what these mine workers could do, so they fired on after being fired upon yesterday. the president of south africa cut short his international trip to a regional conference so he could tour the mine and ask his own questions. >> unbelievable. obviously, there's going to be a lot more developments on this and we hope you'll bring them to us. thank you very much. st before ts touches your lips. the delightful discovery,
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say what you will about the band pussy riot, but one thing is for sure. they have guts. they staged a scathing protest song in christ the savior cathedral.
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the target of this was a critical message to russian president vladimir putin. the refrain of their song, mother mary please drive putin away. you could probably do that in the united states. you might face something, but would you be locked up like that? russian officials charged them with hooliganism. it's what it's called and today, a judge has found all three members of the band guilty and had sentenced them to two years in prison. this has sparked outright concern not only in russia, but right around the world. about freedom of speech in russia. phil black is outside the courthouse and joins us now live. two years in prison? are they kidding? >> no, they're not according to supporters, they think that's
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pretty steep. the performance only lasted an hour and 30 seconds. only got through one verse and one corious. could have been a lot worse. they could have been sentenced to seven years. the prosecutor asked they receive a three year sentence. they've been in custody for five months since they were arrested and through the the duration, so that will count against time served and it's possible it could be reduced further on appeal. so certainly a big chunk, but it could have been worse. >> we're having a bit of problems with your signal, but i think we got the gis of it. madonna also protested with her performance in moscow and wore that in her concert specifically referencing this band. protests in support of the band today are planned here in new york city as well as paris and london and other cities as well. i want to take you to alaska. the national parks there where
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wildlife and history abounds. it's also where our cnn photojournalist went for today's travel insider. >> it has twice the size of texas. fewer than 1 million human residents and only one area code, but alaska's got great national parks and we visited two of them. getting there, planes, trains, no automobiles. the alaskan railroad will take you to the doorstep of the national park. from the depot, the shutting bus to the visitor's center, lodges, camp sites and various trail heads so you can hit the back country. a delightful ride lets you sit back and let you enjoy the six million acres. it is hard to take a bad picture here. it is the third largest national park, but three times larger than yellowstone.
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the center piece is mt. mckinley. the highest peak in the united states. denali maeans the great one. you want to feel like a professional wildlife photographer? the national park is unmatched. it is accessible only by chartered air taxi or boat. bear camp offers day and multiday trips with experienced guys who provide safe access to areas. heavily populated by brown bears, fox, moose and a few volcanos, this park is a dream vacation destination. okay, team! after age 40, we can start losing muscle --
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live pictures as we await paul ryan to take the mike. he is just outside of richmond, virginia. we are waiting for the vice presidential hopeful to make some remarks in just a couple of minutes. guidance says this is all going to be about you, folks. stronger middle class and you can bet there may be a couple of hit that is the president is going to take in paul ryan's remarks. especially the remarks about if you got a business, you didn't build that. that's the criticism. that's the phrase stand alone that the conservatives have been hammering the president with. but they don't tell you what came before the phrase. roads, bridges. if you had a business, you didn't build those. it's become a political hot spot and that is the thought there's going to be some talk about this in this crowded room today. we're going to check in on when it starts. ann romney has been at mitt romney's side throughout this campaign and now, she's
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revealing that the stress and strain have resulted in a flare up of her multiple scler oasis. >> i had just a little one, but enough to give me a scare. right at the primary time. such a crazy time and i didn't want to have anyone worrying about me. especially mitt. i didn't tell anyone. but i knew i had to quit. >> what were you feeling? >> i started feeling tingling and numbness coming back and i started to get dizzy. the ms fog. just a reminder that i can't keep that pace up. >> the next president of the united states, my husband, mitt romney. our senior medical correspondent is live with me from atlanta. give me a bit of a background for those who don't know just what is ms and what does it do to you? >> here's a little ms 101.
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we have nerve cells and those nerve cells are covered by a sheathe called the mi lynn sheathe. when that gets inflamed, it can result in as mrs. romney mentioned, ms fog, pain, difficulty moving. fatigue. those kinds of symptoms. so, what about the stress mrs. romney mentioned because without question, they have been under a lot of stress. a campaign as brutal and this has been a particularly brutal period in the campaign. does that really have an effect on ms? >> when scientists try to study stress cause an ms flare up, the answer is no. they don't see there's a one to one cause and effect there. but ms patients like mrs. romney will say gee, i was under a lot of stress, pushing my body much
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too much and i got a flare up. in that case, doctors will say listen to your body and if you need to slow down, slow down. but they also say you don't want to necessarily get rid of the stress because getting rid of the stress can cause more problems. imagine if she said i'm going to stay home. be in the bed, sit in a chair. not going to do this. that could cause even more problems. that could be depressing to stay home when really she wanteded to be out on the campaign trial. there's a balancing act and it sounds like that's what she's doing. >> i'll tell you one thing, ms or no ms, i don't have it and i was on the the bush campaign in 2000 and i was so exhausted that "the new york times" or some newspaper said that i couldn't remember colin powell's name. i don't even remember that. it's really hard, especially if you're sick. >> for anybody, so when you have a chronic illness like she does, you have to listen to your body.
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>> love you. thank you. and for more information, you can go to the website, cdc.governcdc.gov. in columbia, did you know that nearly one in five teenage girls or are are already mothers? many are still children themselves. this week's cnn hero is carving out brighter futures for themselves and their kids. >> teen pregnancy is a very big issue. when you go to the slums, it is unbelievable what you see. many of my girls live here. you see these girls. they're babies holding babies. about ten years ago, i was volunteering at this maternity
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hospital and i was holding this baby. and he passed away with me. his teen mother failed to raise the money to cover treatment. four days later,pass ed away in an accident. i realized i didn't want any mother to feel the same grief i went through. my name is catalina escobar and i'm helping teen moms. when we first started the the maternity hospital, we were reduced dramatically the infant mortality rate. but the real problem, my girls end up being pregnant because they don't have sexual education and many of my girls are sexually abused. when my girls come, they drop their babies in the day care center. we didn't workshops so they can develop their skills.
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raymond and thomas hiers walking out of prison, free on bond. they had been convicted of first degree murder of a suspected drug dealer back in 1987, but a judge decided to throw out the convictions, get rid of them and order a whole new trial for these brothers. turns out, there are some new witness accounts that cast a lot of doubt on their guilt and in a bizarre twist, a facebook post led to those witnesses coming forward, witnesses that say oh, those killers, they weren't white. they were black. that's a big difference in eyewitness accounts. i spoke with those brothers in an exclusive interview on out of t the. >> happy, elated. last few days have been like a whirlwind. meeting new family and getting to know everybody once again. >> so, it's a very odd story when we hear the new witnesses
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saying, clearly, you two are white and the people who committed this crime they say could have been four or five black guys who jumped a fence and committed this crime. how on earth did you get embroiled in this and do you know any of these black suspects? >> absolutely not. we got embroiled in it by just being in the neighborhood that night basically. >> here's how it started. robert carney was a drug dealer back in 1987 on june 26th, he was shot to death. in 1993, there was a man named john heelshire and john told his roommate, kevin, that he was there when carney was killed. he witnessed it. he tells kevin that he and a high school buddy had gone up to carney's house looking for some weed, when four or five black guys hopped a fence, told him to
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get out, scram. fast forward to 2009. kevin sees a facebook posting. pretty random. that says something to the effect of it's too bad that the highers brothers are in prison for life. kevin tracked down john and said you've got to come forward. do you guys think this is a case of mistaken identity? >> yeah, that's exactly what happened. they were there and -- they were more or less victims themselves on the crime and was told at gunpoint to leave. and they ran back to their car, got in and drove away and we were mistaken for them two young white men. >> thomas, i'd like you to weigh in on this really honestly. knowing what was going down in that courtroom, did you or your
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brother ever consider a plea bargain to get the time down and just do the deal even though you say you're innocent? >> no. never. it never entered or mind. something was asked to our attorneys at the time and they didn't even consider it. it was, there was no doubt being raised we wasn't going to do that, so when they told us there was a plea, we said absolutely not. >> it's not over for the highers brothers, not yet any way. the prosecutors were not happy this happened. they want that conviction reinstated. they've actually appealed the judge's decision to let these guys out, but if they lose that appeal, they will get a new trial. in fact, they're headed back to court for a pretrial hearing on august 29th. and then, in one blinding blink of an eye, their tree had given its last.
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introducing the all-new cadillac xts. available with advanced haldex all-wheel drive. [ engine revving ] it's bringing the future forward. we told you before, we're looking live. paul ryan walking on to the stage in glenallen, virginia at the high school where we've been waiting the vice presidential candidate as he gives comments today. the gop tells us it is expected to focus on the middle class. stronger middle class. let's listen in to paul ryan. >> thank you. i'm not going to repeat what she said. it is great to be here in glenallen, home of the wildcats. i tell you.
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you know, my buddy eric cantor, i think his kids went to high school here. i got to tell you, that is a leader. i mean, he literally is our leader in the house of representatives, our majority leader and thank you for sending this great leader to congress from richmond area. we really appreciate it. thank you so much for that. here's what it comes down to. we have a big choice to make. at least we have a big choice to make. and it's not too late to get this right. we can stay on the path that we are on, the path that president obama has continued us down, which is a nation further in debt, in doubt, a nation going into decline or we can get it right, reapply our principle, get us back on the right track,
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revive this economy and get the american idea back on track so we can save this country's greatness. it's a clear choice. you see, politicians, president obama and too many politicians in washington have been more worried about their next election than they've been worried about the next generation. we cannot continue to reward the politics of the past. and we won't do that. we will lead, take on the tough issues. we want to earn your support. we want to deserve victory. so that when we do this, next year, we will do all the things we need to do to get people back to work to get this economy growing to get this debt paid off and leave our children a
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better country. that's what it is. now, undoubtedly, president obama inherited a difficult situation when he came into office. the problem is, he made things much worse. and he's not changing tune. he's going in the same direction. so really what we have here is we have a president who's run out of ideas. and therefore, we have a president who has decided that his campaign's going to be based on frustration and anger. hope and change has now become attack and blame. we're not going to fall for that this year, are we? no. we're going to be offering solutions. we're going to be offering ideas to get this economy growing. specifically, you see it right there on the wall.
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the romney plan for a stronger middle class. a specific agenda to get higher tack home pay, more jobs in this economy. it's an agenda home pay and more jobs in the economy. it is an agenda with a goal of creating 12 million jobs in the first four years and that is 345,000 jobs right here in virginia. grow the economy and reignite opportunity. there is no reason to grow the economy at 4% instead of the stalemate we have right now, but it is going to take leadership, and it is going to take decision-making and take a plan. number one, this is so true in virginia as it is in so many parts of america, we have a lot of energy in the country, and let's use this energy in this country. energy independence. all of -- all right.
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we want to scoot away from the live comments in a moment, but if you want to continue following paul ryan's live comments go to cnn.com, because you can follow everything that we do live from the desktop or the mobile phone and even an app on the iphone for cnn. you can watch that, but for the analysis of this our political editor paul steinhauser. the gop said he would focus on the stronger middle-class and i tried to figure out, okay, makes sense, great message, but the hammering is on obama care and medi-scare and did this speech topic surprise you? >> no, it is the theme for some time, and mitt romney has been saying a lot of the same words that you have heard paul ryan saying, and mitt romney saying i can do a better job tor the middle-class and president obama's policies have made it worse for the middle-class. you heard paul ryan use a new tactic and theme from the romney campaign talking about the obama campaign and anger and hate, and that is something that we have heard in the last week now.
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so, yeah, these are, i guess they are the standard, and the new standard stump speech. but ashleigh, the key here is location, location, location. that event right now, that is happening in suburban richmond, virginia a big swing area in virginia. later today, paul ryan has another campaign event in suburban washington, d.c. so that's no surprise at all, and remember, virginia, barack obama was the first democrat to win virginia in a presidential election four years ago and the first since 1964, and virginia is a crucially important state, and the romney campaign believes they can grab it back, and the polls indicate it is very close in virginia. ashleigh? >> okay. paul, thank you so much. and paul ryan and paul steinhauser, he will be speaking later on today so continue watching cnn, because you will get that comment as well live. i think he is headed to northern virginia with another rally at a suburban washington high school and 3:45 eastern time. back in a moment.
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i hate your politics. that's exactly what floyd corkins said right before he shot a security guard and again t the allegations from that family resource offices. >> he was given authorization by the southern poverty law center who has been labeling people hate groups, but i believe that the southern poverty law center should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology. >> the southern poverty law center is not backing down. they say that perkins' accusation is outrageous and the allies on the religious right are saying in effect that
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offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic society is downright saying that the object of the criticisms should be the targets of criminal violence. the two groups have a past. the southern poverty law center who monitors hate and bigotry, did put the research council on the watch list saying it had spread false and denigrating propaganda about lgbt people. and also they found more ammo and 15 more chick-fil-a sandwiches in the backback. and remember the chick-fil-a ceo came out against gay marriage and then all of this. could it be political? sure. in the meantime, the legal contributor paul callan is here, and if we are talking politics and this is true to drive this man to what he did, is it hate crime or domestic terror? what do the statutes say? >> well, domestic terror is a
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act that tries to move the government on a policy question in a particular direction. it is vague. hate crimes if it is directed to the politics torer gender or the religion or the sexual orientation, it is a hate crime. in the end, we all try to characterize these criminals depending where we stand politically as being on the side of our political opponents. >> and we do it very quickly. >> immediately. whoever this deranged crazy person is who has opened fire is then sought to be put up with the tea party, the republican party, the democratic left wing, whatever your opposition group is. >> and sometimes legitimately so. look, in the case of eric rudolphf in 1996 and 1998, he set off a whole bunch of bombs and killed two people, and motivated by christian ideology and against abortion and sentenced to four consecutive life sentences and that being said, we know that this man's allegation that he shot the security guard at the research center, he's under psychiatric evaluation, and that brings me
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to think about someone named john hinkley, jr. john hinkley, for anybody under 40, he shot ronald reagan and i think that the first things sought was that it was a political assassination. was it? >> not at all. and hinkley later when interviewed by psychiatrists said he did it a as gift to the actress jodie foster so what appeared to be an attack on conservativism's greatest symbol was in fact, some crazed love act for a hollywood actress. when you look into the case, it demonstrates why it is so dangerous to politicize the crimes early on. because in tenin the end, they have nothing to do with politics, but a deranged mind. >> and also, from hinkley to jared loughner who has now, last year, he has plead guilty to shooting 13 people, and hurting them and shooting 6 people and killing them, inin

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